10,000 men talk about rape and domestic abuse in iPod-mediated survey

Almost half of those interviewed in a UN survey of 10,000 men in
Asia and the Pacific reported using physical and/or sexual violence
against a female partner. The study used apps on iPod Touch devices
for data collection in order to maximise disclosure.

The multi-country UN Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific has
taken four years to collate. Men were interviewed from rural and
urban areas in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka
and Papua New Guinea. The proportion of men who reported having
perpetrated physical and/or sexual violence against a partner in
their lifetime varied from 26 percent in rural Indonesia to 80
percent in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea -- although in most
places the figure was between 30 and 57 percent.

The study also found that men started to perpetrate violence at
much younger ages than previously thought. Half of those who
admitted to rape reported their first time was when they were
teenagers. 23 percent of men who raped in Bougainville in Papua New
Guinea and 16 percent in Cambodia were 14 years old or younger when
they first committed rape. The vast majority of those men who
admitted to rape (between 72 and 97 percent of men depending on the
location) didn't experience any legal consequences. In fact, many
men felt that they had the right to have sex with women regardless
of consent -- more than 80 percent of men who admitted to rape in
rural Bangladesh and China felt this way. Perhaps most startlingly,
four percent of respondents said they had perpetrated gang rape
against a woman or girl (although this varied between just one
percent to 14 percent depending on the location).

According to James Lang, the Programme Coordinator for
Partners for Prevention, the technology was "critical" as it
encouraged disclosure

Given how sensitive the subject is, there have been very few
studies that have surveyed men about violence against women. This
is certainly the largest scale survey of its kind, offering up a
large dataset of male responses as well as 3,000 responses from
women.

The interviewers in this survey used an app installed onto iPod
Touches to collect data from participants. The questionnaire was
translated into eight different languages and featured an audio
track of the questions for men who couldn't read. According to
James Lang, the Programme Coordinator for Partners for Prevention,
the technology was "critical" as it encouraged disclosure.

"We feel that this gave us better data as it allowed us to ask
men very sensitive questions about their use of violence, rape, sex
with sex workers and children in a way that was comfortable for
them and completely anonymous," he told Wired.co.uk.

"Many people we've spoken to about this study use the
term 'shocking'. The rates we are reporting are shocking, but we
knew this is a highly pervasive issue"

James
Lang, Partners for Prevention

Male interviewers would go into the households of men aged
18-49, who had been randomly selected to participate, explain that
the data was anonymous and would initially help the interviewee go
through some of the less sensitive parts of the survey -- mostly
demographic information. The interviewer would then show the men
how to use the app to respond to some of the more sensitive
questions and then leave them in a private place to give responses
anonymously. This avoids any potential ethical dilemmas for the
interviewers about obligations to report criminal behaviour to the
police.

"It's important for us to follow ethical guidelines for violence
research. We don't want to know who says what; some of these are
criminal acts," Lang explains.

This process was adapted from a survey that explored rape and HIV in South Africa, under the guidance
of an advisor from the South African Medical Research Council.
"They helped to innovate this approach of using handheld devices,"
Lang said. "The literature is pointing to the fact that we are
getting higher rates of reporting from devices than from paper
surveys and more general surveys that don't just focus on
violence."

The prevalence rates of rape and violence against women that
were collected in this study are validated by other dedicated
surveys on violence against women where women were interviewed,
such as a sister survey by the World Health Organisation.

"Many people we've spoken to about this study use the term
'shocking'. The rates we are reporting are shocking, but we knew
this is a highly pervasive issue," explains Lang.

He also points out that the variance rate in the survey is quite
large, ranging from 20 percent of men through to 80 percent of men
using some kind of violence against their partner over their
lifetime."

However, for Lang, the critical findings are the associations of
factors that drive men's use of violence.

Child abuse was a common phenomenon across the surveyed
countries, with 50 percent of men in Sri Lanka and 86 percent of
those from Bougainville in Papua New Guinea reporting experiences
of childhood emotional abuse and neglect.

Between 13 percent (rural Bangladesh) and 67 percent (Papua New
Guinea) of men reported experiencing childhood physical abuse,
while between six percent and 37 percent of men reported
experiencing sexual abuse before the age of 18. Men's
experiences of abuse were associated with depression, low life
satisfaction, poor health, gang membership, being involved in
fights with weapons, alcohol and drug abuse, use of transactional
sex and violence perpetration.

Some men also reported being raped by other men as adults --
from 3 percent of male respondents in China through to seven
percent in Papua New Guinea.

Intriguingly, a large majority of respondents (between 84 and 99
percent) -- both men and women -- believed in the abstract idea of
equality, supporting the statement that "people should be treated
the same whether they are male or female".

However, when asked about specific family and domestic
practices, their views tended to be less equitable, but with highly
varying levels of acceptability of violence against women. Five
percent of men in urban Indonesia believed there are times when a
woman deserves to be beaten, compared with 62 percent of men in
rural Bangladesh.

The women surveyed tended to be more conservative and gender
inequitable than their male counterparts, showing that gender norms
-- even those that contribute to men's use of violence -- can be
reinforced by women as well as men.

In terms of limitations of the survey, Lang says that the sample
was limited to 18-49-year-olds, which means that everything the
team asked men about their childhood was retrospective. Although he
points out that Unicef is working on a survey looking at the same
issues among children.

Recommendations from the report include working to change social
norms related to the acceptability of violence and the
subordination of women; the need to promote non-violent
masculinities oriented towards equality and respect; addressing
child abuse; working with young boys to address the early stages of
sexual violence; promoting healthy sexuality and making sure that
men who rape are punished.

"The reason we followed this methodology is because we are
really concerned with trying to end violence in the future," says
Lang. "This survey has given us very concrete ways forward. We hope
that the survey inspires governments, communities and civil society
to really get behind some of the changes that are needed.
Protecting children is critical, as is the ending of impunity and
tolerance of violence."

"Drivers of violence are things that can change and they have
changed in some societies. Violence is preventable, it's not a
natural position for men," Lang concludes.